Decorating the place where you live, be it a room, a flat or a mansion, can be great fun. My husband and I have just bought our first house (a small Victorian terraced one) and I decided that I'd like to add some vintage touches to it. Obviously they wouldn't be authentic - for one thing, our house has had a kitchen and bathroom added, and for another I had no desire to leave the front room untouched, to be used only for entertaining visiting swains and taking the dead out of in their coffins. I'm a married woman and there's a distinct lack of corpses in our house, so it'd never get used at all...

Anyway, I found it very difficult to find very much information on home decor from the fist half of the twentieth century. There were plenty of modern books on the subject, but next to nothing by contemporary writers. Only the very rich could afford to change a whole room at once, which meant that art deco suites and the work of Syrie Maugham were about as much as I could garner. Only my lovely Bride's Book offered any help, so I'm going to reproduce some of its advice here to help other people who can't find the information they're looking for. I'll also share some of the marvellous magazine projects I've found.

But first, some things I've learned in decorating my own home.

1) Try to find contemporary information
This is difficult, and if you want, say, a 1930s flavour to your room, you might find it easier to buy the latest book on the 1930s home. However, those books are written for people now, and so are written with current tastes in mind. If you don't believe that current tastes can influence how we look at period styles, imagine a 1970s BBC costume drama. Done very well, but you can tell it's from the 1970s. The colours alone give it away. There are exceptions to this rule, and some books and reproduction programmes are well-done, but if you put your faith in Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen, you'll get everything you deserve. Stick to contemporary books and magazines, and note details from films made during the era you're interested in.

2) Colour is your friend
It's tempting to use muted colours for everything, because muted colours look aged. Try to find out what colours were popular at one time, though. The 1920s, in particular, can come as a real surprise because people are used to thinking of the 1930s' restrained palette when they picture the jazz age. But bottle greens, tobacco browns and vivid purple were all popular - I've seen them used all in the same piece of carpet! So check your era. You might decide to go with completely different colours anyhow, but then again you might find inspiration.

3) Big pieces, big difference
A really good piece of furniture will affect the way your whole room looks. My friend Cat has an amazing 1930s cabinet that really adds "it" to whatever room it's in. If you can't get a genuine period piece and reproductions are too expensive (oh, how we coveted Habitat's repro 1950s sofas, but they cost a budget-breaking £1500!), look for furniture in classic designs with plain covers. That way they'll blend in with whatever else is in your room. Likewise, don't cover every available flat surface with bitty things, no matter when they were made. It looks clumsy and cluttered and gives the impression that you're trying too hard.

4) Pattern matters
Reproductions of vintage fabrics and wallpapers are available nowadays. Some of them are extremely expensive (such as the repro Eames and Raoul Dufy fabrics), some are cheap (for example, 1950s printed cottons reproduced for quilt-makers). They do give your room a real lift, though, and it's worth considering spending extra to get something really special. Even if you can't afford enough Dufy cloth for curtains, perhaps you could reupholster your dining chairs in it, or make cushion covers from it. Multicoloured fabrics or paper can provide inspiration for the rest of your room. If your preferred paper is expensive, you could just paper one wall in it.

"When the bedroom contains plain furniture, the introduction of one or two cretonne-covered easy chairs adds an interesting decorative note and increases comfort."
Good Housekeeping, 1920s

5) You don't live then, you live now!
Don't feel you have to turn your house into a museum. If you want to hang a poster on your wall, do it. If you want a modern settee because it's comfy, buy it. Don't let your love of a period ruin your love for your home. Ultimately, if it's full of things you love, it will achieve unity, even if it's not period-perfect.